Re: System files and "make distcheck"

[cwr]

Quoting Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden>:

> Hello,
>
> * address@hidden wrote on Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 03:38:43PM CEST:
> > I'm building a package which on installation writes to a file used
> > to configure the GUI - this file is always in /etc, no matter where
> > the package is installed.
>
> What if I'm trying to bootstrap a new system, say, whose root lives in
> /sys-root or so?
>
> > When installing, that's not a problem,
> > since installation is done as root, however I haven't found a way
> > of letting me run "make distcheck" without error, since that is done
> > as an ordinary user.
> >
> > The entry in the main Makefile.am is approxmately:
> > install-data-local:
> >         grep xxx /etc/yyy || sed zzz /etc/yyy
>
> Make sure the target directory is not /etc but something like
> $(DISTDIR)$(sysconfdir), so that both
>   make install DESTDIR=/sys-root
>
> and
>   make install prefix=/sys-root
>
> have a chance of succeeding.

It looks as if the standard GNU installation method would require
every user to run ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc, whereas most would
just try the usual ./configure && make.  Given the choice between
a convenient installation for the user, and a working distcheck, I
think I'll have to take the convenient installation.

The other approach would be to run the command grep xx || sed yyy || true,
so that the installation never fails, but since the setup's a bit
obscure if it failed that would cause even more problems for users.

Thanks for the ideas, anyway - Will